The following pictures appear, left to right, top to bottom, in
the order they were taken during totality. All were taken with
a Nikkormat mechanical camera and 500mm Reflex-Nikkor fixed
aperture f/8 catadioptric "mirror lens" on a single roll of
35mm Kodachrome 64 colour slide film. The film was removed
from the camera immediately after the end of totality and
brought back to Switzerland where it was processed the
following week by the Kodak laboratory in Lausanne.
Astronomical photographs usually lack clearly-defined frame
boundaries, so it's risky to rely on the photo lab to cut and
mount individual slides; I requested the processed film be
returned uncut and unmounted. I examined the film roll on a
light table, cut out the individual frames, and inserted them
in plastic slide mounts.

I inspected each of the 37 resulting slides (hey--Kodak always
gives you a little extra film on the roll and during a solar
eclipse, who's counting?) on the light table with a 10 power
magnifier and chose 12 of the best images representative of
the phenomena visible in totality to present here. These
images were transferred to a Photo CD, with each slide scanned at
3072×2048 pixel resolution. I cropped to the portion of
each scanned image containing the Sun, creating the high
resolution images linked to this gallery. Medium resolution
images of 640×640 pixels and the 256×256 pixel index images for
this page were generated by scaling the original full resolution
scans.

I took these shots with essentially the
same technique I used
to photograph the 1999 eclipse.
Immediately upon arrival at the observing site,
I set up a collapsible aluminium tripod and mounted the
camera and lens on it.
This permitted the lens to equilibrate to the ambient temperature
during the partial phase of the eclipse,
eliminating the risk of thermal focus shift which can occur
with long focal length mirror lenses. In the last minutes
before totality I removed the lens cap (while shadowing the
lens by standing in front of it--even a slender crescent sun
may incinerate your camera's shutter curtain) and placed
an Orion full-aperture
aluminised glass solar filter over the lens. This permitted
me to safely frame the sun in the viewfinder (allowing for the apparent
motion of the Sun during totality), and fine-focus the lens.
This way, there was no need to waste a moment of totality looking
through the viewfinder--when the lights went out, the camera was
already aimed and focused.

The range of light intensity of the eclipsed Sun far
exceeds what can be captured on film. An exposure which
shows the prominences erupting around the disc of the Sun will
capture none of the coronal streamers extending several solar radii,
while a long exposure which reveals them will
hopelessly overexpose the inner corona. The only option, then,
is to take a sequence of exposures ranging from very short to
very long, each capturing different aspects of the eclipsed
Sun. At the start of totality there may be a tiny sliver of the
photosphere still visible (a diamond ring or Bailly's beads), so
it's best to begin with shorter exposures. I set the shutter
to 1/1000 second before the start of totality. Once
totality began, I simply tripped the shutter (using a cable
release to avoid vibration), advanced the film, then set the
shutter speed to the next longer interval. After waiting a couple
of seconds for vibration to damp out, I took the next shot, and
so on..."lather, rinse, repeat".

A Nikkormat has 12 shutter speeds ranging from 1/1000 second to
1 second, plus "B", where the shutter remains open as long
as the shutter release is depressed. I cycled through each
speed in succession, holding the release for about three
seconds upon reaching "B", then progressed back toward the
shorter exposures. Upon reaching 1/1000 again, I made a
limited excursion toward longer exposures, then headed back
toward the short end in the hope of arriving there at the end
of totality, which I was lucky enough to accomplish.

Now the sweet thing about this photographic technique is that
with a totally mechanical camera like a Nikkormat and
sufficient practice, you can do it entirely by
touch--you needn't forfeit a millisecond of "eyeball time"
during totality, yet you still take home a roll full of
photographs. In fact, between exposures, there's plenty of
time to observe the Sun with binoculars, check out the spectrum
of the corona with a diffraction grating, search for stars and
planets in the sky, look for the arrival and departure of the
Moon's shadow, or check for shadow bands at the start and end
of totality.

Click on images for larger views.

This 1/1000 second exposure was taken an instant after the
second contact (the start of totality). The Moon is moving
from lower left to upper right across the face of the Sun; the
initial diamond ring at the 1 o'clock position
is just disappearing. Prominences are visible at the 3 and 10
o'clock positions and all around the large active region at the
upper right.

A 1/125 second exposure captures prominences and the inner corona
simultaneously. Note how the corona is particularly
intense above the active region at the upper right, forming
the base of a coronal brush visible in longer exposures.

In this 1/15 second exposure the intense inner corona washes
out the prominences except for just a hint at the 3 and 10
o'clock positions where the characteristic red hydrogen alpha
prominence colour bleeds onto the black disc of the
Moon. The bases of coronal streamers are evident around the
disc; look at that beautiful double streamer just below the 9
o'clock position.

A 1/4 second exposure begins to give a hint of the extent of the
coronal streamers visible to the eye. The green cast of the corona is
due to ionised atoms of iron which emit light in the green portion
of the spectrum (principally the 530.3 nm forbidden line of
Fe XIV).

Doubling the exposure to half a second further enhances
the streamers and some of the filamentary structure of the
corona, particularly near the active region at the top right.
The white light which predominates in the inner corona is
principally due to light from the photosphere scattered by free
electrons stripped from ionised atoms in the corona, where the
temperature exceeds one million degrees Kelvin. In the outer
corona, light scattered by interplanetary dust also contributes
to the continuum emission. This dust pervades the solar system
along the plane of the ecliptic to beyond the Earth's orbit and
can be seen as the zodiacal light after sunset and before dawn
(in a dark and transparent sky).

This shorter exposure, taken around mid-eclipse, shows additional detail
of coronal filaments and streamers.

Halving the exposure time shows streamers closer to the Sun.
The human eye perceives a far greater range of intensity than
photographic film. All of the phenomena which require
separate exposures to highlight--prominences, streamers, inner
and outer corona--are visible all at once when you
observe an eclipse in person. That's why folks are willing to
journey to the ends of the Earth to see one.

This 1/1000 second exposure was taken at mid-totality. The Moon, moving from
lower left to upper right, has now occluded the red hydrogen alpha emission
from the active region at the upper right. The large eruptive prominence
at the 3 o'clock position is still very much in evidence.

The motion of the Moon across the face of the Sun is evident
when comparing this 1/1000 second shot taken 2/3 of the way
through totality to the previous image from the half way
point. The Moon has begun to block the prominence at the
right and is revealing prominences at the lower left
previously hidden behind the Moon's limb.

This medium length exposure was taken in the last few seconds before
third contact--the end of totality. The red glare from prominences
at the lower left is clearly visible even through the overexposed
glare of the inner corona.

Third contact ushered in a beautiful diamond ring effect. This
1/500 second exposure shows the (overexposed) photosphere
emerging at the lower left as the Moon uncovers the face of
the Sun. Even at this moment, the inner corona and prominences
remain visible to the camera, although the dazzle of the
diamond ring hides them from visual observers (who must, in any
case, avert their eyes or use a safe solar filter from the
instant totality ends).

I couldn't believe my good luck to have the shutter set to an
appropriately short exposure at the moment the diamond ring
occurred, and I was luckier still to be able to get a second
shot of the diamond ring at 1/1000 second (on frame 37 of a 36
exposure roll of film, no less!). The emerging Sun, while
still overexposed, is less so, revealing the red chromosphere
around the limb of the Sun as the Moon uncovers it.

This composite image approximates the visual appearance of the
eclipsed Sun by summing a selection of images featuring
phenomena visible simultaneously to the human eye.
Superimposed on the Moon's disc is an image of the Sun taken within
half an hour of totality in Zambia by the
SOHO
spacecraft 1.5 million kilometres sunward of the Earth.
For details please refer to the
Production Notes
for this image.